From a workplace wellness point of view, internal departmental bickering is a nightmare, but it can easily damage a business’ bottom line.
I once worked with a business where a million-dollar project was halted because the head of operations refused to start working until the sales manager apologised for something he had said in a meeting. It was a stalemate and resulted in long delays as each party waited for the other to crack.
Of course, it wasn’t all about a single comment in a meeting. It was the final straw in a turf war that had been bubbling along for months. The root cause was a culture of poor communication from the top down, and no outlet for employees to air their grievances before they spiralled out of control.
My solution was to regularly bring the team leaders and department heads together in a problem-solving forum. These are an excellent opportunity to put forward ideas and identify potential roadblocks for the good of the business, not a chance to sling mud at ‘that lot’.
Do you have any tips to prevent office wars? Let me know in the comments.